Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Month 1

Right now I am writing this instead of thank you notes.  Sorry to those of you who have not yet gotten thank you notes for your generous and adorable baby gifts. I promise, I'll do it.  They're sitting right there in front of me.  I just am so excited to have some "free time" right now that I had to spew out some thoughts.

Right now, little lady Booberry is asleep in the pack n' play in our bedroom with the sound machine on really loud.  This is miraculous because generally she refuses to sleep flat and, in fact, almost always refuses to fall asleep in anything except the Doctor's arms while he's bouncing on the yoga ball or the MAGICAL swing my sister-in-law loaned us.  Seriously.  There are INFINITE mom blogs talking about all the baby products you NEED and my two cents on this is SWWWWWWIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG.  There are other things that are good to have (yes those fancy muslin blankets are awesome), but the swing makes it so I can occasionally eat a meal with other adults at my dining room table or sleep for more than two hours (like three hours...).

Right now, Booberry is ONE MONTH OLD (happy Earth day).


She is still more a pooping, eating lump of tears than a human, but she did see her reflection yesterday and smile (She's so vain. Actually, she just had gas).  Her emotions range from
"I am confused by this thing in front of me that isn't a boob"
 to
"I need attention so I'm gonna cry"
 to
"I'm pretty sure I'm dying so I'm gonna cry so hard it physically hurts my mom's body"
to
"There's a boob in my mouth so I'm cool for a minute."

That's a lot for a ten pound thing!  Ruby is roughly the same size and her emotions are:
"Catdome is being mean to me so I'm upset"
"I'm asleep or close to it."
"There's lunch meat somewhere look how cute I am gimme."
"Booberry is crying, how can I help?" (so cute)

I feel like this post is sort of unorganized.  I was pretty sure I was well rested.  But I'm also pretty sure my brain hasn't grown back yet from pregnancy.  My phone app, like always, tells me that's normal.

Ok.  The last month.  Here's what I learned:

C-section recovery is just awesome.  Every time I pee, I'm thankful for my c-section.  Too much info?  Don't care.  It was great.  I've been off drugs for a while now so I can say with (some) mental clarity, that recovering from that major abdominal surgery was really not that bad.  Sure, it hurt to laugh or cough for a while there, and sure, I'm still not supposed to lift things heavier than the baby but I do all the time and then I feel like I pulled my uterus, but I have to LIVE MY LIFE sometimes and take my SUV of a stroller out of my SUV of a forrester.  I obviously haven't experienced birth any other way, but I highly recommend a good surgical removal of baby.  As I said to my OB as I said goodbye at my checkup, "Let's do this again sometime."

Baby weight does not just come off like some people promised.  First of all, they gave me so much dang fluid in the hospital that, when I weighed myself at home, I hadn't lost any pounds from the birth...which basically means I gained ten pounds from giving birth because the baby and all the other stuff was gone.  But that chunk did come right off in the form of COPIOUS DRIPPING SWEAT.  Now I'm just stuck with the actual pregnancy weight which seems to be quite cozy hanging out around my midsection.  Of course, I'm technically not allowed to do strenuous exercise, so I can use that as an excuse.  The $10 of half-off Easter candy I bought yesterday does not need to be entered into the record.
mmmmm....worth it....

Babies do not take good newborn photos.  WELL mine doesn't.  Seriously, do they drug the kids before they take the pristine, sleeping with one arm propped up pics?
Not my child.

They surgically removed my modesty and vanity.  Right now I'm wearing sweatpants I slept in last night because the slightly nicer sweatpants I put on this morning when I "got dressed" got puked on.  Also, I will probably show you my boob.  When I was on drugs, I forget how many people I showed my boobs to...not like on purpose...but just because I couldn't be bothered to cover up. I'm trying to show less people my boobs now. And, I've sort of made peace with my stretch marks (which appeared on my legs as a result of the post-birth edema despite an entire pregnancy of moisturizing).  Finally, I continue to talk about how ridiculously amazing having my water break was (best thing that ever happened to me...we can say it's because it led to the birth of my sweet, hangry little Boo, but also because it ended the bonus week of pregnancy).

My whole world is boobs.  My whole.  WORLD.  I spend MANY hours a day with my own boobs (I mean, technically, all my hours I'm with them...but I'm actually USING them now).  Sometimes her ladyship likes to have hour-long, leisurely luncheons.  Sometimes I have to pump so the Doctor can feed her at night and I can sleep a little after spending the afternoon cluster feeding her (cluster feeding is when they eat always...which my child does from about 3pm to ? every night like the invite to a frat party).  Sometimes I get unpleasant infections (mastitis) and more than one person (man) said, "Oh.  Cows get that." (gotta love Oregon dudes).  Yep.  I'm a milk cow.  Moo.

I'm still crazy.  I would argue that I'm less crazy now.  The Doctor would probably make a face, though, indicating that we should not argue with the crazy lady.  But, yeah, still kinda hormonal.  Like most people, I had a few days of  "baby blues."  For me, baby blues felt like inexplicable, inconsolable grief.  Like someone had died and not just been born.  It wasn't triggered by anything in particular and I had no ability to self-soothe.  The Doctor could usually talk me down by telling me this was going to go away and that he loved me and crap like that (love you).  My OB said, "Of course you have baby blues!  Look at all the things that are happening to you: you have mastitis, you're exhausted. your husband is back at work, your hormones are insane, and you have a baby now." Fortunately, the blues went away pretty soon after I got better thanks to  the most glorious antibiotics, but I really feel for people who get postpartum depression and try to just deal with it.  Super unpleasant.  Don't do it.  Also, as predicted, I regularly accidentally wake her up while checking to make sure she's still breathing.

Oh yeah and I have a baby now.  Sometimes I forget that I didn't always lug around a carseat full of screaming adorableness (she does not like getting into the carseat but will eventually fall into a deep, beautiful slumber if I can calm her down or drive on a bumpy enough road).  It's super weird having this tiny(ish) creature that I cooked in my body now hang out in my house.  Neither the Doctor nor I ever spent significant time with a newborn (I don't really remember my sister at that age and didn't have to take care of her anyway) so this little thing that seems mad at us all the time is sort of a mystery.  I tried to read to her today because my phone told me to and she wasn't having it...I'm still pretty confused on how reading to her at this age will do anything.  All she wanted to do was lie face down on my chest while I sang Sondheim until she got hungry again.  We see older babies and long for the day when we can play with our creation and that she will maybe show us more preference than a guinea pig would.  Yet, I still love her somehow.  She does not do much or give me much back in return (I mean she gives me massive amounts of bodily fluids, but I didn't really ask for those), but I still get excited to wake up to her in the morning (early, early morning).  Well, my boobs are, anyway.  

I should take a nap.  The whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing is well and good, but I'm an adult and I'm not programmed to sleep at 2pm when it's sunny out.

Nevermind, she's up.  Boob time.